What is iCloud?
MobileMe is dead. Long live iCloud.
That's was the resounding message from Steve Jobs' keynote speech at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in June – an event that also saw the announcement of OS X 10.7 Lion and iOS 5 for iPhone, iPad and iPod.
The changes wrought by iCloud are fundamental to the way all these devices will work together in future. In a nutshell, Apple is using push technology – first pioneered by the BlackBerry smartphone and then adopted by the iPhone – and has widened its appeal with a whole raft of new features for OS X and iOS that could easily change the way you use them in future.
What is iCloud?
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The biggest change is that the push technology used by iCloud means you'll no longer have to synchronise your Mac with your other Apple kit using the MobileMe synchronisation settings found in System Preferences; it will just happen automatically.
Need to change your partner's mobile phone number? Change it in Address Book on your Mac and that change will be pushed to the Contacts app on your iPhone, iPod and iPad in an instant. You won't even need to do a thing.
However, the there's a whole lot more to the way iCloud works. The aim of this feature is to tell you about each one and how it will affect the way you use your Mac and other devices. Let's start with the basics.
If you use MobileMe and Mail, then you'll know all about push technology already. What's new is that it has spread to iCal and Address Book, so you'll no longer have to worry about synchronising them yourself or frothing in frustration when it doesn't work, or you end up with lots of duplicated content. Steve Jobs admitted during his WWDC keynote that MobileMe was below par – that it "wasn't our finest hour".
Fortunately, iCloud replaces MobileMe's 'It just works... Sometimes' with 'It just works.' It should be a major change for the better.
Arriving in the Autumn alongside iOS 5, iCloud will also give you fully fledged replacements for MobileMe's iDisk and iWork.com (the beta website service Apple launched alongside iWork '09 that enabled you to share your Keynote, Numbers and Pages documents with friends and co-workers, while also acting as a handy backup).
Instead iCloud will now give you iCloud Storage, another push-based cloud computing service that will automatically synchronise any new documents you create on your Mac, iPad, iPod or iPhone to the other devices you own. So no longer will you have to worry that you've left behind a crucial Keynote presentation for work on your Mac at home.
Another new feature of iCloud is the Photo Stream service, which enables you to do with your pictures what you can do with your documents – sync and share them seamlessly and easily using push technology. On the Mac, this feature will be integrated into a future update to iPhoto, but you can already imagine what that means for photos you've take on your iOS device: they'll also automatically appear on your Mac and other Apple devices – and they'll even appear in the My Pictures folder of your work PC, if you have to use one (although the exact details on how this will work have yet to be fleshed out).
One of the most important changes for music fans is that iCloud will also enable you to enjoy content from your iTunes music library anywhere you want it. For Apple has announced iTunes Match, a service that will scan your iTunes library and automatically synchronise it with what's available from the iTunes Store. It will then enable you to add any missing content from the iTunes Store simply by uploading it to iCloud.
What's more is that much of Apple's revamped replacement for MobileMe will be available either cheaply or for free: Contacts, Calendar, Mail and document storage will cost you nothing (with some caveats – more on these later) while iTunes in the Cloud will be a paltry $24.99 (£15.21) a year, although it and iTunes Match are only currently available in the US.
But perhaps the most fundamental change of all is that Apple has finally 'cut the cable' between the Mac and your other Apple devices. Now they will all be able to stay in sync wirelessly using Wi-Fi or 3G.
This gives you the freedom to do whatever you want with whichever device you're using, without either having to tether them to each other using bits of wire, or relying on the vagaries of one of the most unloved corners of the Apple empire: MobileMe.
iCloud release date and beta
iCloud will shop at the same time as iOS 5and some have already received emails welcoming them to iCloud.
The service has gone live for registered Apple developers, with those lucky few able to test the functionality using iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion.
Feedback so far from the developer community has been mixed with some parties disappointed that full document editing in iWork using iCloud doesn't offer Google Docs-like solution many had hoped for.
iCloud pricing
Apple has announced the pricing tiers for its iCloud service, which was launched in beta for developers on Monday.
The company has already confirmed that it will be offering all iOS and Mac OS X users 5GB of cloud-based storage for free, but if you want a little extra, Apple is offering multiple solutions.
10GB of additional space will cost £14 a year, 20GB extra will be £28 a year, while 50GB of space on top of the free offering will be £70 every 12 months.
However, don't fret, this doesn't include any media files, such as photos from the Photo Stream functionality or music.
iCloud: how and why
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Obviously, being able to synchronise all your stuff seamlessly and using iCloud isn't just about what you'll be able to do. You'll be joined by millions of other Mac, iPhone, iPod and iPad users too.
The numbers speak for themselves: during the WWDC keynote, it was revealed that there are now 54 million active Mac users worldwide, along with 200 million iOS devices. That's an awful lot of data to push around, especially when you factor in iTunes into the Cloud too: you're talking, potentially, about many petabytes of data.
To make all that happen not only requires decent mobile and fixed broadband speeds, it also requires an awful lot of storage, and Apple has been very busy making sure there's plenty to go around.
Firstly, it's invested heavily in upgrading its existing data centres in Cupertino and Newark, California. It has also taken on extra capacity with a seven-year lease at the DuPont Fabros Centre in Santa Clara. Apple's biggest investment, however, has been at Maiden, North Carolina; it's invested $500 million (£304 million) in a new purpose-built data centre on the 255-acres of land it has acquired in the area, with plans already underway to build a second data centre next door.
To make sure iCloud happened, Apple also spent $4.5 million (£2.73 million) buying the iCloud.com domain name from cloud computing company Xcerion. It then splashed an estimated $150 million (£91 million) on making sure it had on board all the major record labels – EMI, Warner, Sony and Universal – so it could launch iTunes in the iCloud.
These are enormous amounts of money in anyone's book. What Apple's competing with, of course, are rival services to iCloud such as Google's Gmail and Amazon's Cloud Drive. Some of these services are available either at a low cost or for free, as well as cloud-based alternatives to iTunes such as Google Music, Spotify and Amazon Cloud Player.
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With so much competition either actually or potentially on the horizon, Apple's investment in iCloud makes perfect sense – especially when you also factor in competition coming from Microsoft, its Xbox Live services and Sony's recently troubled PlayStation network.
There's also the question of what else Apple has up it sleeve. The ability to stream movies, TV shows and other video content was curiously absent from the WWDC keynote, although it's understood that Apple is engaged in bringing these services into iCloud too (something that may be in place for its Autumn launch).
Let's look at some of the iCloud services that already exist in a bit more detail.
iCloud services, backup and storage
Contacts, Calendar, Mail
We've already touched on the major changes to this cornerstone of MobileMe and how it will change with iCloud. But there are a couple of other aspects to this that are worth exploring. Each one of these services has been extensively re-engineered from the ground up, so they'll work seamlessly with iCloud and by extension with the new versions of the OS X operating system: OS X 10.7 Lion on the Mac, and iOS 5 on the iPad, iPod and iPhone.
Mail is being given a major make-over in Lion, while changes to iCal will make it much easier to share calendars with friends, family and colleagues. We're hoping that the changes here will also make their way into the iCloud web version: at the moment any calendars you subscribe to (UK holiday dates from Apple, for example) work fine on your Mac or iOS device, but you can't subscribe to them on MobileMe. We do hope this gets fixed in iCloud.
App Store, iBookstore We haven't touched on these before because they're primarily aimed at iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad. In essence, anything you buy from the App Store or iBookstore will be automatically pushed to your other devices (up to 10, at no extra cost) enabling you to read a book or play a game you've previously downloaded for one Apple gadget on another. The implication is that this will also sync the app or book with your Mac's iTunes library automatically too.
Still, its primary aim seems to be to enable you to keep all your previously purchased content so they'll be instantly available when you want to upgrade your iPhone, iPod or iPad to a new model.
iCloud backup
This is another part of the iCloud service that's primarily aimed at iOS users. Anything you buy, any photos you take or settings you make on your iPhone, iPad and iPod will be automatically backed up over Wi-Fi. This will save you the hassle of synchronising them the old-fashioned way by hooking them up to your Mac using a USB cable.
iCloud Storage
This is another area we've touched on already, so here's the detail. iCloud Storage will enable you to seamlessly synchronise and backup your documents – along with any changes made in those documents – using Keynote, Numbers and Pages.
You'll get 5GB of free storage for your documents. That's a generous amount given that iCloud Storage specifically excludes any data storage you need for your iTunes music, books and apps, or your images in your Photo Stream. Apple says you'll be able to buy extra storage for your documents if you need it. Pricing will be announced when iCloud launches this autumn.
iCloud Photo Stream
This is Apple's alternative to photo sharing services like Google Picasa or Flickr. Any photos you take on iOS devices such as your iPhone or iPad will be wirelessly pushed to all your other Apple kit, including your Mac and Apple TV, as well as to a PC.
The last 1,000 photos you take will be stored on each iOS device to save space, but you'll also be able to save them permanently as an album. Apple says your Mac (or PC) will be able to store all your Photo Streams, but they'll only remain on the iCloud for 30 days (something, Apple argues, that will give you plenty of time to store them on your Mac via Wi-Fi).
iTunes to iCloud
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This is iCloud's most exciting component. The contents of your Mac's iTunes music playlists will no longer have to jostle for space on your iPhone, iPad or iPod, because all of it will be available to you anywhere using iCloud.
iTunes Match will do its best to tie up the contents of your iTunes library with the content that's available on the iTunes Store (something Apple says will take minutes, not days) and will even replace any low bit-rate versions with 256kbps equivalents. You will be able to upload any content the iTunes Store doesn't have to iCloud; the only catch is that you'll have to pay $24.99 (£15.21) a year for the privilege.
Both iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match are currently only available in the US. Note though that iTunes in the Cloud doesn't yet include video. That means you won't be able to watch iTunes on the fly, but it's not yet clear if it will also include iTunes music videos too.
The iCloud will also extend to all your iBooks and apps. All your purchased apps and iBooks can now easily be downloaded to all your devices, not just the device they were purchased on. The App Store and iBookstore also let you see your purchase history at a glance. While it was possible to do this before by buying the app again for free, this is a more elegant solution.
5 things we would like to see iCloud do next
1. Movie Stream
Like Photo Stream, only this time for movies. Steve Jobs made no mention of the video recording capabilities of the iPhone, but being able to push movies you shoot to your other devices would be great.
2. Ping 2.0
Like Ping, only much better – you'll see all your social networking feeds in one place and be able to write and upload your own content to any one of them with ease.
3. Web Stream
A Mac-friendly rival to online blogging platforms such as Google's Blogger or Wordpress. It'll be quick and easy to post and share new content anywhere.
4. Game Center Extreme
The next version of iOS 5 brings new features to Game Center, but we'd like it to do more – like enabling you to play multiplayer games against online friends and family using your Mac, iPad, and so on.
5. iTime Machine
A speedy over-the-air backup service that would enable you to make incremental copies of the contents of your Mac's hard drive. It would work like a super Dropbox.
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